Daily Devotion: If You are Backing Up You are Going in the Wrong Direction

Key Words: The backsliding Israel hath justified herself
These are the key ways to identify a backslider according to Proverbs 14:14. First, you can tell because they are filled with their own ways. (They see nothing wrong with what they are doing.) Number two, the backslider is satisfied with where they are spiritually.

If you’re not moving forward spiritually then you are a backslider.

Jeremiah says the end result of the backslider is they will lie down in shame and will be put to confusion.

John Charles Ryle says of backsliding: “It is a miserable thing to be a backslider. Of all unhappy things that can befall a man, I suppose ‘backsliding’ is the worst. A stranded ship, a broken-winged eagle, a garden overrun with weeds, a harp without strings, a church in ruins – all these are sad sights. But a backslider is a sadder sight still. That true grace shall never be extinguished, and true union with Christ never be broken off, I feel no doubt. But I do believe that a man may fall away so far that he shall lose sight of his own grace, and despair of his own salvation. And if this is not hell, it is certainly the next thing to it! A wounded conscience, a mind sick of itself, a memory full of self-approach, a heart pierced through with the Lord’s arrows, a spirit broken with a load of inward accusation - all this is a taste of hell. It is hell on earth.”